IMAGING RESEARCH CORE FACILITY

Director: Christopher A. Flask, PhD
Assistant Professor, Radiology
flask@uhrad.com

Imaging Research Center home page

Imaging Research Center Program

RADIOPHARMACEUTICAL DIVISION

Overview

We recently have established a new radiopharmaceutical program at the Case Center for Imaging Research (CCIR) (http://ccir.uhrad.com/). Radiopharmaceuticals are drugs that are labeled with radioisotopes such as C-11 or F-18 and used in the field of nuclear medicine as imaging agents for position emission tomography (PET) and single photon emission tomography (SPECT). Over the past decades, cutting-edge nuclear imaging techniques such as PET and SPECT have been developed and integrated into routine clinical practice. Unlike conventional studies in the field of radiology such as X-ray, PET and SPECT are functional imaging modalities at the molecular level that require the use of trace amounts of radiopharmaceuticals in order to image and visualize the body functions and physiologic processes. CCIR has been equipped with microPET and MicroSPECT/CT for preclinical studies in animal models and PET/CT for clinical studies. In conjunction with the newly established radiopharmaceutical program, investigators and clinicians can now take advantage of these state-of-the-art imaging tools in their biomedical research. To date, a variety of radiopharmaceuticals have been developed and are widely used to aid in early, definitive diagnosis, facilitate efficacy evaluation of therapeutic interventions, and deepen our understanding of molecular mechanisms of diseases.

In a joint effort among CCIR, Case School of Medicine, and University Hospitals, a new radiochemistry laboratory is now under construction, which is committed to providing cost-effective radiotracers and radiochemistry support to clinicians and investigators at Case Western Reserve University, University Hospitals, the Cleveland Clinic, MetroHealth Medical Center and other biomedical research institutions in the northeastern Ohio region. Meanwhile, several commonly used radiotracers have already been made available for potential imaging applications. More radiotracers can be requested for future production. Interested investigators are encouraged to fill out the attached request form. For more information and questions regarding the current portfolio of radiotracers and their imaging applications, please feel free to contact Dr. Yanming Wang at yanming.wang@case.edu.